Session 18: Down into the Bugbear Lair

Continued From Session 17: Hunting, Hunting

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On Friday the 16th, the players began wisely. The previous fight had chanced to produce a single not-dead but unconscious bugbear with minus 2 hit points. Having thought about it, the consensus was to allow the bugbear to wake up, expecting it would head for home… but the question arose, if a creature's hit points are in the negative, would it just "wake up." On the one hand, it's not dead, nor is there any reason why it's hit points should diminish; on the other, the rule is plain that hit points heal per day, not over a shorter period, with rest. That's a fairly long wait.

But does a creature that can't eat, and is laying on open ground without a blanket, "resting"? If I were on a bike and hit by something that knocked me unconscious, and then left me on the ground for two days without someone there to feed me and ease water into me, would I get better? I'd rule not. But, I pointed out, that if two hit points were healed, the creature would not be wake instantly; I do have a rule, "rouse sleeping creature" that stipulates that a sleeper will require 1, 2 or 3 action points to wake up. That's after being awoken, a rule I haven't written yet for the wiki, though there are links asking for such a page. I ruled that the player, healing the creature, would probably have a full round to run away before any waking would occur; from a dead stop, at full possible movement for 4 AP, that's a distance of 30 hexes—in what has already been identified as "open woods."

So the druid Arduin gave the bugbear two goodberries and hightailed it. The bugbear woke, looked about… and then led the party straight to the bugbear's lair.

This is a clear case of the players being able to use their comprehension of the environment to judge their abilities and make a concrete plan they know they are safe to apply. The rules are comprehensible, they can be thus employed and the players feel they're playing a game, not acting according to the DM's wishes or against them. Though complicated, a setting and the game's rules can be structured to allow rational, logical decision-making without anyone being forced to guess.

Thus the players found the hole in the ground they were looking for.

(please ignore some of the flaws in the map above; the transparency goofed)

The party then began their descent. This consisted of one stair well after another, as the party descended 90 feet into the dungeon. In 4018, they encountered one single large rat (3HD, 1AT, damage 1-6, 3-18 hit points) which scurried, then two others which they fought in the space at the bottom right. They did not take a single point of damage.

I thought they might hesitate a bit, as each stairway was very steep, with a dexterity check required if hurried, but the party simply shrugged off the descent as nothing. I suppose that's the nature of things; I wasn't there to protect them or anything, but at least I appreciate a party that isn't incomprehensibly panicked about every detail. So they more or less rushed through this part of the dungeon as fast as I could put it up on the Discord site, while the party was hungry to get at the bugbears they knew were down below.

Descending another 15 feet, the party encountered a long hall, with a gate at the head of it; paying no mind, the character at the fore (either Lexent or his hench Herek, both run by the same player) opened the gate and there was a terrific clatter. The shot here isn't from the actual game—I never think to take screenshots, as I'm focused on running, not setting up this post—but this is more or less what the party encountered:

That is a worg; it stood and snarled at them; I expected it to engage until it was hurt, whereupon it would cry out and be called back by its master. There was a second one waiting just up around the corner, in case the first got into trouble.

Well… the party seriously hurt the first one, pathetically easily I thought, then killed the second when it tried to help. At last the party had a bad round where no one hit and the first one fled, having lost 2/3rds of its hit points. And at this point in the game, the party had yet to take a single hit point of damage.

Naturally, the party strutted a bit and felt properly invulnerable as they poked ahead… but not incautiously, I noticed, because they are beginning to know me. We'll move onto the third sequence of the night.

The screenshot here comes at the point when the party ran away. They moved through the door at the upper middle, rushed into fight the remaining worg and it's handler, noted the archers on the gallery thirty feet above them… then saw around the corner a heap more bugbears coming at them. They rushed forward and met them, killing the worg, killing the handler, doing some damage… but the archers were vicious.

They would step back out of sight, load, then step forward to fire. Their arrows are bigger, because bugbears are bigger, so they did 2-9 damage each. In addition, the archers are hand-picked; each had a 17 dexterity, so +2 to hit above their 18 THAC0. It only took two rounds of that to make the party think, especially since on the second volley I rolled my one 20-crit of the night, doing 14 damage to Pandred with one arrow and 4 with another.

This was just after she'd delivered 10 damage to the bugbear in hex 1020… which stunned, but my posting 29 remaining hit points (caught the players' attention). Yes, it's probably wrong for me to actually show how many hit points the enemy has left, it does detract a little from the legitimate uncertainty the players should feel, but posting the h.p. right on the battle map saves enormous game time spent… so I just concede the marginal emotional benefit to the larger momentum saving.

An apparently more formidable bugbear was advancing through the door as the party arrived. My assumption was that the bugbear that had led the party back to the lair was also free to report on what he'd seen in the 17th session: "There are a group of very tough combatants, fighters, druid, wizard, clerics, and they wasted us. They aren't like the Ottomans and other intruders we've encountered." And indeed, the party was not. So they pulled out their Subchieftain, 6th level, in scale armour, AC 1, 4 attacks every 3 rounds, to make sure this assault on their lair was put off. And that is precisely what the bugbears managed. Pandred's stunning encouraged him to call for a general retreat, which the party managed fairly well, while the archers above reloaded. By the time they could fire again, the party had retreated back into the "worg's hall," where they waited until the Subchieftain and his 3rd level hench tossed two flasks of flaming oil into the hall. One flask failed to break while the other did marginal damage to the party; that convinced them. They took off and ran, while the bugbears, a lot of them licking their wounds, let them.

I failed to note here that Zoltan the 4th level cleric and Mikael the 4th level mage did not join this session. I think they would have enabled another two rounds, but the number I had stacked against them, particularly those archers, would likely still have overcome the party. I know the total number of bugbears in the lair; they had little reason to hold back and meet this party with a moderate group; the wish to protect their home meant a serious resistance, and the party met it.

Ti went up a level during the session, so that upon returning to civilisation the party ventured to the river town of Vas on the Danube, where he obtained a henchfolk 1st level ranger. Eduard the man-at-arms contributed 10 damage to an attack and achieved the 1500 x.p. necessary to obtain his level training, just as Fenwick did earlier in the campaign. That's two hirelings the party has been able to help survive through battle after battle, despite having less than 10 h.p., sufficiently long enough to make them levelled followers. That is pretty impressive. It shows a good grasp of tactics, care, respect for NPCs and the way in which the party makes themselves more formidable without depending on the arrival of more players.

They were driven out of the lair, but they returned with all their people alive and with advancement earned. A good running.

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